Vigil
by hereswith
Summary: Home to my series of Jack and Elizabeth vignettes, set during the movie. Here is also a ficlet about Jack disguised as a cleric.
1. Vigil

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement   
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.  
**Summary**: Very short. Elizabeth is watching Jack sleep.  
**Author's note**: When I first posted this, I hadn't planned for it to be more than one vignette,  
but it evolved into a series and, on top of that, I wrote them out of order... So, just to clarify,   
the correct order for the Jack and Elizabeth vignettes are: "Collision", "Vigil", "Accord",   
"Clarity" and "Flight". "Faith" is a separate vignette and can be read on its own.

**  
  
Vigil**  
**by Hereswith  
  
**  
The wind, in her hair. The sound of the surf, of wave upon wave, crashing against the shore.  
  
She watched him sleep.   
  
He had, at last, succumbed to the liquor and he lay on his back, oblivious to the world, snoring   
so loud it could, surely, have roused both the living and the dead, as well as the cursed and   
the damned.  
  
But he was at rest, if not quiet. The constant shifting and swaying had ceased. The sea didn't   
claim the whole of him, now. So she did. Took what she could, while none could see, or   
condemn, not even the Captain himself. Especially not the Captain himself.  
  
The moon was up, its face unveiled. It cast a gentler glow, here, than it had on the Pearl.   
He looked young, in the silvered light, incongruously so, and very nearly innocent. No truth   
in either, still, it made her wonder about the boy he must have been. The fledgling sparrow,   
dreaming perhaps, like she had, of an endless horizon.   
  
She felt an odd kinship with that dark-eyed lad, at so many years remove, that she didn't,   
quite, feel with the man. But then, with the man, nothing could ever be that simple, no emotion   
that unalloyed.  
  
Those fingers, she knew, would have left marks. On the fabric of her shift. On her skin.   
On her heart.   
  
And she might not have been drunk enough to allow it, but she was drunk enough to wish   
she had. 


	2. Accord

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement   
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.  
**Summary**: Jack and Elizabeth in the graveyard of ships. A follow-up to 'Vigil'.   
**Author's note**: This is all your fault, Shad :-) You got me thinking about the 'Peas in a  
Pod" scene and look what happened...

**  
  
Accord**  
**by Hereswith  
  
**  
He was mad, of course. Mad pirate. Mad sparrow. And drunk, to boot, on sun   
and seawater and rum.

But he made sense, sometimes. She could no more deny it than she could disregard  
it. There were moments, such as these, when his gaze grew so sharp it matched the   
edge of a cutlass, measure for measure. There were times, such as these, when his   
voice changed, and she could have sworn he sounded as if he meant what he said.

She wanted to trust him, then.

He wasn't the boy she might have played pirates with, as a child, though she could   
see the traces of him, now, in that quick, crooked smile. And she was not the girl   
who had dreamed of the sea.

Yet here, in the graveyard of ships, on the deck of the Dauntless, amidst that   
wreckage and ruin, an accord had been reached. An agreement, of sorts. And   
she thought she might prefer the man to that long lost dark-eyed lad, after all.

Peas in a pod, Captain Sparrow. Peas in a pod.


	3. Faith

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement   
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.  
**Summary**: A little girl and a man in disguise.  
**Author's note**: No Jack and Elizabeth this time. This was written for The Black Pearl   
Sails FanFiction group's drabble challenge for the theme 'Faith', but ended up more than   
a 100 words.

  
  
**Faith**  
**by Hereswith**

  
She was a penny short and she was standing just outside the baker's shop, hovering like   
some wayward ghost, inhaling the scent of newly baked bread. 

"Don't worry, pet," her mother had said. "Believe me, it will be better."

But it had been a week, now, with her father so ill he couldn't work, and they had no more   
money to spare. And she did not believe.

She noted him, at once. He didn't look like a man of God, and she had seen enough of   
them to know. His gait was wrong, and his smile. He stopped, right in front of her, and he   
frowned, almost as if he was angry.

"Hungry, eh?" 

She nodded, preparing to bolt, should the need arise.

"Well," he said, "we can't have that, now, can we?"

With an odd little flourish, he lifted his hand, then reached behind her ear and pulled out a   
coin. Not a penny. It was pure gold, like his teeth. Her mouth rounded, as did the corners   
of her eyes. 

He grinned, quick and sudden, like a flash of light across a blue-black sky. "There, that   
should do it." And he made a half bow, holding out the coin to her as if she was a grand   
lady, and he, not a cleric at all.

She took the coin he offered her, heart hammering against her ribs. There was a sudden   
sound, of heavy feet running and of shouting, and he tensed, but that brilliant grin did   
not fade.

"Time to go," he said. "Sorry, love." He touched a finger to her nose, the way her father   
sometimes did, and he was gone, before she could speak.

She stared after him, clutching the coin as if she was drowning and it might keep her afloat.   
And she believed.


	4. Clarity

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No   
infringement is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.  
**Summary**: Jack and Elizabeth in the cave at Isla de Muerta.  
**Author's note**: Another of my short 'Elizabeth reflects on Jack at various points   
during the movie'. It's almost turning out to be a series...

**  
  
Clarity**  
**by Hereswith**

**  
** She saw his face, after he pulled the trigger. And the memory would stay with   
her, the rest of her days. As a reminder. As a warning, perhaps. Because the   
man she glimpsed, in that brief chaotic instant, was a stranger, cold and fierce   
and dangerous, like some magnificent bird of prey and not like a sparrow at all.

On the island, she had questioned the truth of the stories and tales, and his   
expression had changed and darkened somewhat, as he showed her the   
scars, but even that darkness, and the sudden sobriety that had so unnerved   
her, was nothing, compared to this. Had not frozen her solid, quite like this,   
in disbelief and something eerily akin to fear.

She had danced with him, half-naked, in the flickering firelight. She had sat,   
half-drunk, by his side in the sand, teaching him the words to the song from   
her childhood, in between fits and bursts of helpless laughter. His, as much   
as hers.

But she did not know him.

And she had never thought, never imagined she would be relieved that they   
were, however momentarily, on the same side.


	5. Collision

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No   
infringement is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.  
**Summary**: Elizabeth is saved by a pirate.  
**Author's note**: A little something again... This time I'm going back to that   
very first meeting.

**  
  
Collision**  
**by Hereswith**

**  
** She had no clear memory of it, yet she knew she must have fallen, tumbling   
through the air as if lifeless already, towards the unkind rocks and none too   
gentle waves. And she shied, in terror, from the thought of what might have   
been. From the image of those jagged stones, tearing her apart. But she was  
alive, still alive, and she could breathe again, nothing hindered her. She was   
out of the water and rid of the corset, all by the grace of that man, with his   
black, grimy fingers and dark, knowing eyes.

Captain Jack Sparrow. Flesh and blood and bone and truly here, within her   
reach, at last. And disappointment warred with excitement. He wasn't what   
she had expected, but what he was, she could not ignore. Even when he   
didn't look at her, or glance in her direction, he drew her attention. Her gaze   
caught on the braids and snagged on the beads. It skittered over where his   
shirt gaped open. Scandalous. Indecent. Preposterous. But she had never   
seen the likes of him before.

He seemed a creature born of the sea, a merman robbed of his fins, and while   
not as sleek, he was as slippery, she wagered. Impossible to hold and to keep.   
A pirate, who had recognised her pirate medallion and found some worth in it,   
beyond that of the gold. Who had saved her, not knowing what she wore   
around her neck or who she was. Governor's daughter. Miss Elizabeth Swann.

She could not make them fit, those bits and pieces that she knew of him. And  
she was a proper young lady, much to her father's relief; she shouldn't care,   
or wish to understand. But she did.


	6. Flight

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement   
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from this story.  
**Summary**: The flight of a sparrow.  
**Author's note**: The final vignette in this little series, as I've now reached the end of the  
movie...

**  
  
Flight**  
**by Hereswith  
**  
  
She had fought the undead, she had not fainted at the sight of the skeleton crew and   
she was strangely proud of these facts, but not of this. Not of standing and not moving,   
all prim and proper again, a fine woman indeed, scrubbed, perfumed and safe, while  
he waited to die.

She had pleaded with her father and she had asked Norrington to show mercy, for   
pity's sake, but it made no difference, in the end. Justice was to be done; though she   
could see no justice here, and no honour.

Freedom, she thought, and she could not bear it, she felt like she would burst. She   
wished for men's clothing. A sword in her hand. She should save him; she owed him   
that much. But her fetters, though subtle, were as strong as his were, and failure was   
bitter like tears.

And then—it happened so quickly, the unfolding of the events measured by the beats   
of her heart. A parrot, a blacksmith and she, she did what she could, what she had not   
done on the _Pearl_, in the moonlight. She couldn't breathe, while they ran, she ran when   
she couldn't see them anymore. When the stone walls and the stone-faced marines kept   
them from her. She cursed that bloody pirate, countless times, and she thanked God   
Will was honest enough to be this incredibly stupid, many times more.

She went to them, in full view of the crowd, because she could not stay idle and keep   
her head held high. And as he slipped and swayed, weaving patterns with his body, his   
hands and his voice, patterns she still could not decipher and somehow knew she never   
would, Elizabeth remembered. She would not forget.

Fair winds, Jack, fair winds and endless horizons.  
  
For a moment, when their eyes clashed and he spoke so out of turn, she wanted to  
prove him wrong.


End file.
